http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
I WAS RECENTLY EXPLAINING to my 4-year-old the difference between smart and
knowledgeable. When he gets a bit older, I might refer him to the website of
the National Association of Scholars (www.nas.org).

The NAS keeps track of just how ignorant a nation we are becoming. It makes
for disheartening reading. Higher education is considered the jewel of
America's education system. Math and science departments attract talent from
all over the globe. Yet as the NAS demonstrates in study after study,
general education is in decline, grade inflation is the order of the day,
and in humanities departments, rigorous requirements have gone the way of
the typewriter.

Even when I was a student in the late 1970s, the dumbing down trend had
gotten underway. Columbia College held to its traditional general education
requirement (called Contemporary Civilization and Humanities), but we
Barnard undergrads (Columbia's women's college) could get by with fewer
required courses.

Compared with today's curricula, my student days were tough sledding --
requirements in one's major were supplemented with distribution requirements
in science, foreign language, English and history. Still, a few trivial
courses had already turned up in the course guide. A survey of "popular"
literature (which, I confess, I took) went by a scatological nickname among
the students. And there were courses affectionately referred to as "science
for poets."

That was academic rigor compared with what passes for higher education
today. A new report by the NAS exposes what has become of the once noble
study of English literature.

Surveying the English departments at 25 of the nation's most selective
colleges, and comparing today's offerings with those of 35 ago, the NAS
concludes that majoring in English no longer guarantees a familiarity with
the great works or traditions of literature in the English language.

Back in the 1960s, when professors still thought the English tradition was
worthy of passing along, foundation courses were required of English majors.
These introduced the student to the broad categories of literature (the
novel, plays, poetry and the short story), while also placing the riches of
English literature in historical context. In 1965, Colby College was typical
in mandating a two-semester survey called "Major British Writers." The first
semester covered "Beowulf to Milton," and the second "Dryden to the
beginnings of the modern movement."

During that period at America's elite colleges, an English major could
expect that 43 percent of his courses would deal with the major authors,
periods and styles of English literature. Before graduation, he would be
familiar with Chaucer, Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert,
Marvell, Milton, Swift, Pope, Fielding, Johnson, Austen, Wordsworth, Keats,
Bronte, Browning, G. Eliot, Hardy and Yeats. The American writers usually
followed.

In addition, back in the dark ages, four-fifths of English programs
required comprehensive exams before graduation.

Well, you've probably guessed that things have changed. Those DWEMs and
DWEFs (dead white European males and females) have given way to trendier and
less substantial fare. While a majority of English departments once required
survey courses, now only 16 percent do. As for those comprehensive exams,
only two of the 25 colleges surveyed still require them.

In the interim, the number of electives increased by 74 percent,
fragmenting the curriculum and diluting the influence of the great works.
Many of the electives are highly specialized and politically charged. Sex
has become a leading topic of literature courses. Williams offers "American
Genders, American Sexualities," which considers "how sexual identities,
desires and acts are represented and reproduced in American literary and
popular culture."

At Wesleyan, English majors can elect "The History of Sex," which "focuses
closely on a series of problems in the history and representation of sex in
Europe and America." There are hundreds like these, as well as courses
tendentiously "considering" race, gender (Toni Morrison is now more widely
assigned than all but six writers in the English language) and
homosexuality -- all for a mere 30 grand per year.

"We rely on our leading colleges to produce the next generation of writers,
scholars, critics and educated readers," NAS president Stephen Balch
laments. "If these gifted young people aren't encouraged to absorb the
richness of the English literary tradition, our culture can't help but be
diminished."